


Independence Day Get-Aways

by candlesneedflame



Series: The Teenage Vigilante's Guide [5]
Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Angst, Fireworks, Fourth of July, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Matt is with us only in spirit in this one folks, Mentioned Character Death, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, not sure about tagging it this but maybe, so strap in for that, this is a bit of a serious one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-03 19:49:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19470955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/candlesneedflame/pseuds/candlesneedflame
Summary: Two is a coincidence, but three is a pattern. Vigilantes and heroes alike are abandoning New York like rats from a sinking ship, and Peter has no idea why.“Wade,” he says simply.“Hm?”“Why is everyone leaving town?”





	Independence Day Get-Aways

**Author's Note:**

> Happy fourth of July! Yes I know America does bad shit and it's especially hard to celebrate it right now, but this fic isn't really celebrating it. Beta'd by Lemonchomps! 
> 
> Check end notes for trigger warnings.

While things between Peter and Mr. Stark have definitely gotten on better footing after their complete falling out over the Daredevil issue, he still recognizes that they aren’t back to where they used to be. He doubts that they’ll ever get back to that place because back then Mr. Stark was infallible; Peter hung off his every word and treated him like a god. He’s even started to recognize that no matter what, they never would’ve been able to have a mentor/mentee relationship. He worshipped Mr. Stark as a hero before he ever knew him as a person, and that made it pretty damn hard to feel like they might ever be on equal footing.

There’s still an imbalance of power given one of them is a billionaire celebrity living legend and the other is a broke high school student, but things are getting better. Peter’s come back around to hanging out at the Tower even when he isn’t in the lab with Mr. Stark. Ms. Romanov has actually been showing him a bit of hand to hand combat that works surprisingly well with what Matt has been showing him.

He and Ms. Romanov have just finished up with a bit of training which is why Peter finds himself hanging out in the Black Widow’s living room drinking Powerade with her while she tries to figure out the logistics of using his webs as a makeshift garrote.

There’s a knock at the door, and Natasha looks over at it for a second before saying, “Come in,” to whoever it may be out in the hall.

A moment later the door opens, and Sergeant Barnes walks into the apartment while Captain Rogers stays just outside the door.

“Hey, Peter,” Barnes says, not seeming at all surprised that he’s here, before turning to Natasha and spouting off something in Russian.

She responds in kind before getting up from the couch and walking over to hug him. She has to stand on her toes to do it, but she kisses him on the cheek too.

As Sergeant Barnes leaves, Peter notices that Captain Rogers has a duffel bag slung over each shoulder.

“What was that about?” Peter asks Natasha once the door is shut.

“They’re going out of town for a couple days,” she answers.

“Oh. Is it for a mission?”

She shakes her head. “Independence Day.”

Peter makes a confused face but doesn’t pursue the line of questioning any further. It’s said with such a finality that he feels like he should understand exactly what it means, and he doesn’t want to be seen as stupid or naïve for having to ask.

* * *

The next time Peter finds himself in the lab working on upgrades to his suit, he’s a little bit surprised that he doesn’t see Mr. Stark there with him. Well, it’s not that uncommon to not see Mr. Stark, but he’ll usually at least hear the man dropping wrenches or talking to Friday or doing something else out of sight.

Once he finishes the modifications to the web slingers, he decides to seek out Mr. Stark to say goodbye. They’re still working towards an equal footing even if they aren’t there yet, so Peter doesn’t want any perceived petty sleight to set that back. Lord knows it’s taken them long enough to get back to this level of comradery.

It takes him a little while and Friday’s assistance, but eventually, he finds Mr. Stark in the penthouse packing a suitcase.

“Mr. Stark?” Peter says, knocking on the door frame lightly.

Tony looks up from the suitcase that’s laid out on the bed and turns to Peter for just a moment before focusing his attention back on packing.

“Hey, kid. Didn’t realize you were here,” he says as he folds a shirt into the suitcase.

“I was doing something with the suit,” Peter says, slightly lifting the backpack in his hand that contains the suit. “Just wanted to say bye before I headed home. Are you going somewhere?”

Tony hesitates for just a split second before nodding. “Yeah, yeah. Pep and I are getting out of town for a few days. Figured we were due a vacation.”

“Right,” Peter replies with a nod. “Well, I’m gonna go now soo…” He points his thumb over his shoulder before giving Tony casual finger guns, if there ever was such a thing.

“Yeah—I’ll see you when I get back,” Tony replies, and that’s that.

* * *

Peter finds himself in need of an associate to help him bust up a weapon trafficking ring down by the docks. Usually, he’d just call Matt up, but Matt’s people have informed him that in no way shape or form is he to encourage Matt to put on the mask as they’re in the middle of a huge case and they need him to actually show up for court.

The next name that pops into his mind is Wade Wilson, so that’s who he calls.

Peter actually works surprisingly well with Wade—something that they discovered a while back when Wade appointed himself as Peter’s personal security detail for a little over a week. Their fighting styles mesh well, and if he remembers to ask nicely then Wade doesn’t kill anyone. It doesn’t hurt that their costumes are just similar enough that, in the right lighting conditions, it confuses whoever they’re fighting.

Thankfully, Wade is in town. He hadn’t ended up having to do two to three murders _or_ seven to eight heavy bodily harms because some not-so-mysterious donor felt bad enough about the whole situation that they gave Wade enough money to cover what he’d spent keeping Peter safe. That’s probably just about the only reason he’s in the country.

Once the dealers have been dealt with, Peter finds himself sitting on top of one of the shipping containers at the dock and swinging his legs as he watches Wade rummage through the weapons, oohing and aahing over the different models of guns.

“Whaddaya say Spidey,” Wade says as he wiggles his way out of a crate he’d dove head-first into, now cuddling a scary looking rifle to his chest like a stuffed toy. “Think I can keep this as payment for a job well done?”

Peter should _probably_ tell him no, but Wade really did an excellent job of not killing or maiming anyone.

“Go ahead,” he says after a moment’s hesitation, and Wade presses the rifle to his chest with his forearms so he can hold his hands up in a heart shape.

“I ordered one just like this, but I don’t think it’ll be here before I leave for my next job,” Wade says.

“I thought you were taking a break?”

Wade shrugs as he admires the gun some more. Now he’s stroking it like a cat. “Figured it couldn’t hurt to take just one job.”

“Where are you going for it?” Peter asks.

“Romania,” Wade answers just a little bit too cheerfully, even for him.

Something is going on.

Two is a coincidence, but three is a pattern. Vigilantes and heroes alike are abandoning New York like rats from a sinking ship, and Peter has no idea why.

“Wade,” he says simply.

“Hm?”

“Why is everyone leaving town?”

Wade looks away from the gun to give Peter a look that he can’t quite read through the mask. “Fourth of July.”

Before Peter can ask for more clarification, the telltale sound of sirens shortly followed by flashing lights come into view, and Wade ditches the scene, leaving Peter to handle the police.

Wade doesn’t answer when Peter texts to ask him what he meant, and he doesn’t want to bother Matt since it’s late and he has court in the morning. The only other person in his circles who is reliably up this late (and not away on vacation) is Jessica, so he gives her a call.

The voicemail message has been changed for Alias Investigations which isn’t all that uncommon. Peter recognizes which version of the message it is the second he hears the first word spoken in Jessica’s more irritated than usual voice.

“You’ve reached Alias Investigations. I’m out of town doing my job; leave a message and get back to doing yours.”

Peter doesn’t leave a message.

So, that’s four. Five if he counts Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes as separate entities, but where one of them goes the other does too, so four is the more accurate count.

The next morning the number rises to six while Peter is sitting in the living room drinking the most incredibly sweetened coffee Pinterest could teach him how to make. Adults drink coffee, so he figures he has to start somewhere; the sugar and creamer and mocha powder are just training wheels. He has the TV turned to the news as is usual for him nowadays, and the ‘breaking news’ story the anchors have been baiting viewers with all morning is finally being told.

Fifteen people were found shot to death in a town in rural Mississippi. Fifteen Klansmen to be more specific. A black man had been killed in the town a year before, and the man accused of his murder had gotten a not guilty verdict at the trial a month ago. He was among the bodies, as was the judge for the trial, and two members of the jury. A sixteenth man is in critical condition, and he identified the attacker as none other than the Punisher.

That night, the sixteenth man is found dead in his hospital room with one more bullet in him.

* * *

The morning of the fourth rolls around and Aunt May tells him that she’s working the overnight shift because it’s inevitable that some idiot will blow off his hand or at least a couple of fingers with fireworks, and they’re going to need all hands on deck to deal with that.

Peter hasn’t really made any plans for Independence Day—he was never a huge fan of fireworks to begin with, and now the light from them hurts his eyes enough that it makes it worth his while to actively avoid seeing them—so he figures he’ll just go out on patrol and stop as many people as he can from ending up in the ER. On New Year’s Eve he’d ended up just staying home, so this is going to be his first time dealing with drunk people and fireworks en masse. Hopefully, they’ll listen to their friendly neighborhood Spider-Man and just not light them. More likely he’ll have to confiscate the fireworks and take them all to one of the police stations; it’s illegal to have fireworks in the first place anyway.

Just because the sun is still up at six doesn’t mean that people are going to wait any longer to shoot off fireworks, and when Peter hears the first crackling sounds of the night he suits up and heads out.

It’s early enough that most people who have been drinking are only tipsy and at least retain some modicum of sense, so he doesn’t see anyone holding roman candles in their bare hands as he swings around the streets and parks.

In fact, it isn’t until just after nine that he has to confiscate his first firework from people who are way too drunk (and high if the skunky smell is anything to go by) to be responsibly handling mild explosives.

“Hey guys,” Peter says, walking towards the group of teenagers standing in a ring around a pile of fireworks, whooping and hollering as one of them tries and fails to get his lighter working. “What’s going on here?”

The dialogue on his part makes him feel a bit like a cop, but it actually works surprisingly well.

“Oh shit, it’s Spider-Man!” one of them yells, prompting a loud chorus of ‘ _ooohhh_ ’ from the others.

“Yo man, can you do a flip for us?!” another one asks, and the cheering starts up again.

Peter sighs and wonders just how well they’re going to be able to process anything he says, especially given he’s lost count of just how many bottles of Coors Light, Vodka, and Red, White, and Berry Smirnoff Ice are scattered around the area. “Look, I’m gonna be honest with you guys, you’re _way_ too drunk to be messing with fireworks, and I don’t want any of you guys to get hurt. I’ll do a flip if you let me take the fireworks.”

There’s a moment of heated whispering amongst the group before one chimes up with a, “Can we film it?”

“Don’t see why not.”

“Will you do it out of that tree?” another asks, pointing up at a tall tree nearby.

“Yeah, totally.” Is it really going to be _that_ easy?

Those seem to be acceptable conditions to all parties involved, so Peter does a flip out of the tree and lets them film it. In return, he gets three plastic grocery bags full of fireworks.

Peter continues along with a surprisingly similar pattern. Most people seem to pretty readily hand over their fireworks to Spider-Man, and the more reluctant ones are willing to give up their contraband in exchange for a selfie or an acrobatic stunt. Videos and pictures of him bartering for fireworks with tricks are circulating all over Twitter and Instagram within the next two hours There are a few who refuse the polite offers, and Peter has to just snatch those fireworks with a web and a well-timed distraction.

By the time he has about six bags full of the things, he ends up swinging around for five blocks until he finds a police officer so that he can hand off the fireworks. The cop seems to be confused but also entertained by the idea of the local hero going around and protecting drunken morons from themselves, and she takes the bags from him gratefully.

He stops a purse snatcher at one point and a would-be car thief a little later, but other than that he’s entirely on firework duty. There’s something nice about almost everyone in Queens having decided to put the major crimes on pause and participate in the rather minor crime of setting off fireworks instead.

Peter’s doing another round of the area to see if he missed anyone or if anyone new has come out with their fireworks when, seemingly out of nowhere, the spidey-sense loses its god damn mind. He barely has time to blink before a firework cracks off incredibly loudly, and he inelegantly falls onto the nearest rooftop.

He shouldn’t be so freaked out. There’s nothing different about this firework compared to all the others he’s heard go off tonight except…

Except he recognizes this street corner.

Pete can barely breathe because suddenly it isn’t a firework; it’s a gunshot.

It’s early evening, and Peter knows that something isn’t right. He’s known that since May and Ben left to go on a date when the crawling sensation first started prickling along his spine and through his skin. That’s been happening a lot lately, since the accident. He’ll get that crawling, tingling feeling and realize that a janitor forgot to put up a wet floor sign or that a driver isn’t going to wait for the crosswalk to clear before making a right turn.

This is worse though. It’s not a tingling or even a crawling sensation; it feels like every cell in his body is screaming and nothing he’s doing is stopping it. He’s been nervous before; May used to do breathing exercises with him to help him calm down every year on the first day of school from kindergarten to the seventh grade. This isn’t nervous. This is the intense knowledge that something bad is going to happen.

Super strength is something he understands. Hell, he even sort of gets sticking to walls—he was bitten by a spider after all. But this? He doesn’t get it.

He doesn’t get it, but he knows something is wrong.

It takes him a lot longer than it should to get off his ass and pull on his shoes, but the feeling is just so horribly _wrong_ that it’s hard to do anything at all. It doesn’t hurt, but he doesn’t know the words to describe how it makes him feel. It takes him so damn long.

He lets his feet guide him to the restaurant he knows May and Ben are at; it’s the one they go to for special events usually, but just this once they decided to go there for fun. Peter finds his walking pace getting increasingly faster as the _feeling_ intensifies until the point that he’s sprinting down the street.

He’s half a block from the restaurant when the feeling crescendos. A single gunshot pierces the air.

There’s screaming and a crowd gathered on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, and Peter pushes past them all and into the restaurant. He doesn’t even try and control his newfound strength as he throws elbows and shoulders to get through the people.

He hears May sobbing and screaming before the smell hits him. It smells like fresh baked bread and basil and blood.

Ben’s there on the ground, blood soaking through his shirt and pooling over May’s hands where she’s trying her best to keep pressure on the hole in her husband’s chest. There are all sorts of horrible gurgling sounds coming from Ben, and some part of Peter’s brain that he wishes he could shut off supplies that his uncle is both bleeding out and drowning in his own blood judging from where the wound is. He’s standing in front of the crowd of people, watching his uncle choke through his last breath except…

Except his uncle has been dead for almost a year.

He’s not in a restaurant; he’s curled up like a child against the air conditioning unit on a rooftop. There aren’t people screaming; there are people laughing a whooping as they get ready to light off another firework. There’s no smell of blood in the air; it’s just residual smoke.

He’s alone on a rooftop and he can’t breathe. It takes twenty minutes for his chest to stop burning and for him to be able to properly breathe again, but as soon as he gets his breath back he starts crying. Loud, painful, heaving sobs that just won’t stop because his uncle is dead and it’s his fault.

Peter isn’t sure how long it takes him to finally stop crying, but once he does he laughs. It’s harsh and bitter and broken because he finally gets it. He finally gets why everyone left town, why ‘Independence Day’ was enough of an explanation from those who actually offered one rather than an excuse.

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warnings:  
> Character has a panic attack  
> Character has a traumatic flashback  
> Description of a non-main character dying
> 
> Hope you all enjoyed this and please leave kudos/comments/bookmarks to let me know you did! My tumblr is dumbbitchnumberone so please go check me out over there! My ask box is always open!


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